Bar Guide 2014: N.W.I.P.A.

If you live in the Foster-Powell neighborhood, I hope you
like beer. More specifically, I hope you like pale ales of the Indian
persuasion by way of the Northwest. Because, if you’re at the corner of
Southeast Foster Road and Holgate Boulevard, there’s no question the
best bar within 20 blocks in any direction is 2-year-old N.W.I.P.A.

Don’t take that as some bearded-beer-guy talk. The place’s charms seem to impress a wide range of people. The Oregonian’s
everyman food critic, Michael Russell, proclaimed the bar’s plate of a
dozen raw Shigoku oysters one of the best things he had eaten all year.
And at 5 pm on a recent Saturday, the picnic tables in the back half of
the bar were taken up by a large baby shower—a normal American baby
shower, replete with pink ruffles and lacy things and little cupcakes.

An airy, hardwood-floor storefront that might as easily
serve as a chiropractor’s office if it weren’t for the beer and a
rotating collection of edgy art, N.W.I.P.A. has quickly established
itself as an embassy for hopheads. There are but six taps, and as many
as four will be dedicated to IPAs, double IPAs and CDAs at any given
time, plus one cider and something dark or sour. A short line of coolers
is stuffed with everything from obscure local kombucha brands to $17
bottles of Double Mountain kriek and a few chintzy domestics for the
slobs. In addition to the oysters, there are well-appointed cheese and
salumi plates.

The bar stools are often occupied by people quietly
reading something from the house’s large library of beer books, but the
tables in the back are convivial. It’s a neighborhood place. In fact,
it’s the neighborhood place.